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What is protest? vol. 3 political ridicule

Three very real, fake political parties

This is the third volume in a series of investigations into the concept of protest through examples and ideas.

In this volume we will be investigating political ridicule as a form of protest. More specifically, I will look at 'fake' political parties. These are initiatives that by partaking in the official technical political system of their national government show the problems and even idiotic way in which it is organised and executed. Most of these fake parties elaborate on how other political parties engage with politics and voters.

We will first look shortly into the domain in which these initiatives intrude: the politics part in the famous distinction given by Claude Lefort between politics and the political.After which I will elaborate on four examples of fake political parties. Thirdly and lastly, I will shortly summaries the method of political ridicule as a form of protest.

Politics and the political:

Often when we hear the word politics we think of the technical way our nations are organized and lead. We think of government, houses of parliament, senators and often most central to those: (democratic) elections. This whole technical part of the political regimes of our nations is what Claude Lefort titles ‘politics’ – which is the technical apparatus that shapes how we maintain ‘the political’. The political is the ‘social institution’ of society, these are therelationswe embody and maintain with all the people with which we share a political ontology (a nation, a union or even the planet). Politics ensures that these relations are reproduced, in a certain – often ideologically guided – way. So, how do these two kinds of politics interact? There are many ways, but in the West’s representative democracies, this interaction is often performed by elections.

As philosopher David van Reybrouck critically notes, it seems that in the democratic west most of political reality has been reduced to elections.[1]Nevertheless, van Reybrouck notes, the representative democracy faces a lot of problems. Problems of inefficiency, lack of legitimacy and what he calls ‘incidentalism’ – the fact that politics often has to engage with ‘the delusions of the day’.[2]These and other problems our representative democracies face are the subjects of the fake political parties I will discuss. Most of these problems occur in the spectrum of interaction between the political and politics, of which, as argued, elections are often the method. And when elections arise on the political agenda, a lot of political parties get very stirred up and suddenly produce all kinds of extraordinary anomalies.

Elections are held in many ways, with many different technical backgrounds. There is the plurality system, in which the candidate with the highest total amount of votes wins. There is the proportional system in which you vote for a party as well as for a specific person on the list of that party and of course there is the majority-based system in which the candidate that has the received the majority of total votes wins. Regardless of the method of elections, they all share a certain presupposed engagement of the people with politics, and a presupposed proper conduct, expectation and interaction of politics with its voters. Many of the fake parties somehow engage with this relation. Nevertheless, most fake parties do not bother whether they are the winners of the elections or not. What then, are the function and goals of these fake parties? Moreover, the goal of regular official parties is to be elected. I am going to investigate this question by running through some examples.

Fake Parties:

In some countries it is tradition that fake political parties partake in the elections for official political offices. In other countries, this is prohibited. This means that some of the fake parties lawfully partake in all the official moments, such as television debates. It also means that in other countries these parties are purely hypothetical and vocalize and imaginary participation in political rhetoric and in elections. The phenomenon of fake or satirical political parties is an international phenomenon, I have picked four – almost at random – with which I will engage.

1. Lord Buckethead (United Kingdom)

When the BBC reported on the third occurrence of ‘Lord Buckethead’ during the Maidenhead constituency in the general election, they noted that he at first glance “might seem like a one-dimensional character; a man who simply enjoys buckets, wearing things on his head and taking on incumbent prime ministers in elections.” But they rightfully note that there is “an awful lot more to him than that.”[3]One signifier of this is the fact that during these three occurrences he stood against Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Theresa May – all three major but controversial political figures from the Conservative Party that all got elected to the office of prime minister.

Lord Buckethead is not just a made-up figure, the personality has a history in science fiction, more specifically in Hyperspace[4], a 1984 science fiction comedy in which villain Lord Buckethead accidentally lands on earth instead of “in a galaxy far, far away” due to a navigational mistake.[5]Lord Buckethead at first does not notice his navigational mistake, he happily starts abducting earthlings which he takes for his enemies. After his minions discover that they have landed on the wrong planet, he consistently denies and kill the minions that tell him the ‘truth’. Eventually, the minions revolt and kick him of the ship.[6]

With the origins of the figure Lord Buckethead in mind, his political implications suddenly become blurred. One interpretation could be that he indeed is an evil alien from another planet, partaking in the UK election system, showing how the system itself allows for evil, arrogant figures to partake and even flourish. Another interpretation is that he tries to ridicule, by negation, the other participants of the elections – it is quite hard to take Theresa May serious in her speech while she is standing next to Lord Buckethead. A third interpretation could be that Lord Buckethead tries to state that it ‘can be worse’.

In order to fully understand the role of Lord Buckethead in the political landscape of elections, we have to understand his position in it. What is his ‘stance’? In one of the videos of a discussion during the period before the election, Lord Buckethead argues the absurdity of the ‘Brexit situation’, he asks voters to “vote for intellectual absurdity, vote Buckethead”[7]if they want more, real, absurdity. In his manifesto he argues there should be a referendum to decide whether there should be a second referendum on Brexit.[8] All over, Buckethead advises us humans, to “take a bloody look at yourselves”.[9]

Buckethead ridicules that which is already absurd by making it even more absurd. He seems to argue that we have lost sight of that which is crazy which we might now see as normal.

2. The ‘Two-Tailed Dog Party’ (Hungary)

Hungary is one of those countries in which it is perfectly allowed for somewhat ‘strange’ parties to partake in elections. One of those parties is the Two-Tailed Dog Party, which takes ridicule in politics to the next level.

Firstly, the name, two-tailed dog party, what does it mean? It can be defined by not being defined. The groups’ motto is that there should be no fixed motto.[10]The name and logo came into being, after a group of students just accidentally drew a dog with two tails. The party became an official registered party in 2006 and ruled that all members should wear a neck-tie and be called ‘István Nagy’ who the Guardian called “the Hungarian version of John Smith.”[11]Their official statements include that they will provide “’More everything, less nothing!’” and that if you “’Are you tired of people?’ you should give “’Give another species a chance’”. They even promised “new express metro lines ‘that don’t stop anywhere’”.

The ridicule aside, the Two-Tailed Dog Party was started to cope with growing nationalism and the turn to the right within the Hungarian government under the leadership of prime minister Viktor Orbán. In 2016 Orbán’s regime send out a questionnaire to Hungarians with questions like “Do you agree with the Hungarian government that instead of immigrants, it is rather Hungarian families and soon-to-be-born children who need support?” The nature of this question symbolizes the almost authoritarian like grasp Orbán has put Hungary in – all answers to this question are pressingly unethical, and it forces Hungarians to pick a choice between two thing who do not even closely adhere to the same category. Kovácks, one of the initiators of the Two-Tailed Dog Party responded by setting up their own national questionnaire with questions like “’There are those who blame the freemasons, others who blame the Jews or the space aliens. In your view who is responsible for the fact that the national debt remains high?’ Possible answers: ‘The Jews’, ‘The space aliens’, ‘The fucking Jewish space aliens!’”[12]. According to The Guardian, the government had spent 2.4 billion pounds on the national questionnaire, double as much as on processing refugees – of which most came from the European Union.[13]

These kinds of ‘irrationalities’ of politics is what the Two-Tailed Dog Party tries to address by overpowering them with even more irrational activities. They argue “that good humour is gone” in Hungary, all that there is left “now is terror-media.”[14]They try to surpass this fact by reintroducing the ideocracy behind the government’s statements. Suzi Dada, one of the groups long standing members, notes that the Party’s aim should be “neither hatred nor despair, towards which people are all too inclined here. Instead we should know how to laugh at something together.”[15]Because only when the rising antagonism between people in Hungary can be transcended, a political solution to its problems can be found.

As today, the party is still an official registered party that respond to national activities and more specifically, to the actions of the Orbán regime by overpowering them with ridicule. They hope to partake in the 2018 national elections and are busy building a strong network of party activists to broaden the scope of the Two-Tailed Dog Party.

3. The ‘Party of Donkeys’ (Iran)

The donkey is a symbol of imbecility, but donkeys are not that stupid. They logistically carry the weight of their owners, keeping the system up and running. The Iranian Party of Donkeys was an acronym for the people of Iran, and they campaigned for a situation in which “every donkey can freely bray”. The party seems to centralise a reimagined aspect of freedom in a system which is deeply indebted to the domesticated ‘animals’ that so trustworthy followed their leaders. The Party of Donkeys seemed to state that it is time for those donkeys to emancipate.

Of course, the analogy of the donkey can be taken in a very different direction. Iran has been on bad terms with the USA – especially relating to their nuclear program which ironically enough has been erected with help of the USA. After the Iranian revolution in 1979 these terms started to shift which eventually lead to today’s nuclear deal between Iran and many countries in the world which the USA under Trump has quit as if just days ago.

The image of the donkey, especially in the USA’s political reality, has for long been the official icon of the democratic party. The logo came to being mostly by coincidence, by Andrew Jackson, whose nickname was ‘the jackass’ – he later used this nickname as part of his campaigns in which he wanted to “let the people rule”. It is unclear whether it is the ‘people’ or Jackson which are the donkey in this analogy. Afterwards the logo has been conceptualized to symbolize the democrats to be “humble, homely, smart, courageous and loveable.” The Party of Donkey’s official motto was “Oxen and donkeys that carry loads, Are better than people who torment their fellows.”[16]The history and actions of the ‘Ḥezb-e Ḵarān’ – the Iranian name for Party of Donkeys – are not very well documented. They did function as a real party with members, meetings and green cards[17]and regularly published satirical comics in newspapers.

4. The ‘Party Against the Citizen’ (The Netherlands)

The ‘Party Against the Citizen’ is a Dutch satirical political party that turns the democratic aim of politics upside down. Instead of being for(or supportive to) the citizen, this party claims to be againstthe citizen, which they show in many of their promotional videos in which they deliberately put forward ways to work against citizens.

The Party Against the Citizen has been active since the 2012 national elections and has since radicalised election and campaigning rhetoric. A Dutch newspaper teasingly notes “No trust in politics? Don’t mis the Party Against the Citizen”.[18]In one of their campaign videos the party’s leader Melle Smit, in a very ‘posh’ Dutch accents, states that “This era forces distrust regarding all citizens. Young and old, poor and rich. Only then we can increase the gap between the citizen and politics”[19]. Or in other words, politicians cannot trust citizens – which implies that citizens also have a responsibility towards their representatives instead of just and only the other way around. The Party Against the Citizen therefore, hopefully ironically argues that “We can only work against you if we do it together. Together against you.”[20]They seem to argue that either politicians have a bad nature, which they can only fulfil by appealing to the core of representative democracy, the voters, or that citizens don’t know what is good for them.

All together their message is not completely fraud, they argue that “many problems in our country are caused by citizens”[21]such as education, healthcare, unemployment or traffic jams which, morals aside, is factually true. Usually citizens look at politicians to solve these kinds of problems. The Party Against the Citizen seems to argue that citizens themselves need to think about their place and agency in politics and realise that politics itself is a response to the fact citizens seem to not be able to do without a form of governance. Especially in a time in which it is argued that there is an increasing gap between citizens and politicians due to the feeling of a lack of legitimacy and effectiveness in contemporary democratic politics, these questions about political agency become increasingly pressing.

The Party Against the Citizen’s argument thus seems to be against political passiveness. It, by negations, argues that the citizen should not trust to much in politics to solve their problems – they have agency over their own problems as well. Nevertheless, in society, citizens are deeply indebted to politics. Oxford Dictionaries defines citizen as “A legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth, either native or naturalized.”[22]A citizen is thus deeply indebted to the superstructures that make up the constitutional foundations of that in which she or he partakes: as the definition puts it, she or he is legally recognized. The question posed by the Party Against the Citizen could be one or both of two. First, do politicians still to recognize the citizen as citizen? Or, second, do citizens still willingly recognize themselves as subjects of that superstructure in which they live?

When we take the argument of the Party Against the Citizen in the other direction, towards politics, it seems it can try to say two things. First that real politicians have a good intention into the people. Second could be that the Party Against the Citizen symbolises a problem that already takes place in politics by blowing it up. An example that illustrates that problem is the difference between policies that are promised during elections, and policies that really become effective after the elections. Many parties campaign with promises which never reach reality, or just in a toned-down version. Especially in parliamentary democracies, where coalitions are formed to be able to form a government this is very much of the political reality.

The Party Against the Citizen reformulates age old, almost forgotten questions about the relation between citizens and politics. It questions the dichotomy we tend to place between both and turns the antagonism against politics in the other directions.

Fake parties and protest

Fake political parties, regardless of being ‘fake’, do something very radical regarding the domain of politics. They take antagonism to a different level by partaking in the official structure that causes the problems which are often protested. They do not protest it from the outside but from the inside. This result is a dissemination of the dichotomy between protesters and that which is protested, because the protesters become – though in a very different way – that which they protest too. It recognizes the diverse and broad background of problems instead of reducing it to a single cause. By partaking in the official structure, the fake political parties gain extra juridical power – they so to say walk outside the lines, within the lines. They don’t try to destroy the system of politics as it is, but they reformulate it within its boundaries. Secondly, it gives the initiators of these fake political parties a position within the problem, which allows for them to approach it in a very different and intimate way. Thirdly, a very practical gain is that partaking as an official party in elections also brings quite some benefits to visibility, it often entails TV interviews, official debates and so on.

The only problem that might very rightfully be noted after these examples, is that due to the fact that most systems of political parties are rigid and controlled, most of the fake parties have to resort to ridicule – they make fun of the rigidness of the situation. I wonder what could happen when aside from ridiculing, these ‘fake’ political parties try to develop a new way of doing politics within their party.